I don’t currently have any ethnic grocery stores near me, but when I did, the Mexican ones always had chicken thighs for cheap, and also limes.
Like, the regular grocery store might have limes at $0.50 each (in the midwest), while the ethnic store would have 10/$1.00. (pre-covid, pre-inflation prices.)
And there was this Ukrainian place where, from the deli, they would sell in trays a mix of the butt ends of the deli meats and cheeses. They’d label it by weight some bulk price that was often cheaper than some of the meats or cheeses contained in it.
It was like being able to get a cheap meat/cheese sampler tray. So there’d be chunks of salami, turkey, olive loaf–or swiss, american, munster…just whatever meats or cheeses they got to the ends of recently.
At an Asian place I used to go to, I could get tilapia, basa, or swai in frozen fillets for cheap. I actually liked the basa and swai–they’re basically farmed asian catfish, but can’t be labeled catfish as a way to protect the north american catfish industry. I can see why they wanted to prevent competition–I find that basa and swai don’t have the “muck” taste that local catfish have.
Anyway, what are some good deals you have been able to find at local ethnic grocery stores?
Spices, it’s a lot cheaper to buy spices at Indian grocery stores compared to other supermarkets. Same with lentils.
Disclaimer: my parents have owned and operated a small indian grocery store for almost 20 years. I can really only speak for their prices compared to other stores I’ve visited.
Do you have any advice for purchasing bulk spices? If your parents own/operate an indian grocery store, I bet you know stuff the rest of us might not.
I guess I’m wondering if there’s types that are better deals or better potency, or if something or other is a sign to stay away from certain goods…etc.?
Edit: I’m very much a spice novice. And I probably sound like one, lol.
I’m gonna be honest, some brands are better than others and even then it’s region and distributor dependent. Unlike bigger grocery stores like Kroger, giant eagle or tops, each small store has to negotiate with distributors individually and the distributors themselves can be small.
Certain brands have their own favored distributors and to get said brands of goods, you either have to buy directly from the distributor or a distributor needs to buy from them in order to sell it.
As for spices, things to keep in mind, chili powder can vary in strength from distributor to distributor or even lot to lot in the same distributor. Most other spices tend to stay consistent. Turmeric is kinda questionable in terms of origin. Some brands advertise as organic, that would be a better bet. Turmeric should be a consistent dark yellow color, not that far off from a school bus yellow. Also you shouldn’t be using that much turmeric. Ill see recipies online for people using a ton of turmeric (like several tablespoons), it can really overpower a dish. If you’re using that much turmeric and it’s not overpowering, it’s probably not that great. Other than that, I can’t really say much.
Stuff in plastic bags tends to be cheaper in terms of unit price as containers are expensive, bulk whole spices can be worth it but it depends on what style of cooking you do and what spices you need and what form you need. Again, I’m Indian so I use both ground and whole spices. I don’t have the patience to grind my own spices consistently and I’d rather just buy preground. Also even if you aren’t buying in bulk, spices tend to be half the price at a good Indian store compared to elsewhere.
When I moved out for college, I bought some spices because I wanted to make a carrot cake. Let’s just say I spent like 3x the price compared to what I would have spent at an Indian store.
If you want to find a bad example of turmeric, look up Matty Matheson’s butter chicken. His turmeric looks weird and he uses an obscene amount of it to compensate a lack of potency I’m assuming. I joke that it’s so much that it fried my computer. (my computer actually blue screened and wouldn’t boot right when my friend sent me this video and I clicked on it. A coincidence but very funny)
https://youtu.be/G6Qjf6IyclQ 🎥 Matty Matheson’s Finger Lickin’ Butter Chicken - YouTube
Thank you so much for your reply! It was basically everything I was hoping for. I really do appreciate it. I didn’t know chili powder could vary that much, or that tumeric can overpower easily. (I’ve tried playing with tumeric…and just didn’t get good results as I had no knowledge to draw from.)
And I’ll definitely take a look at that video, so I can see an example of bad usage. (Man–is there a YouTube channel like that? Or blog? “Bad examples of cooking–and why!” Like, not click-bait bad, just…this isn’t right, for these specific, grounded reasons…)
Fruits and produce are significantly cheaper at Mediterranean or Hispanic stores than they are at the regular grocery stores, and much fresher and more tasty. Even greens like cilantro or parsley are close to $2 each at the regular store, but I can get 3 for $1 at the ethnic stores.
I don’t know why but thier is 2 Hispanic stores near my place and thier produce are not cheaper compared to Walmart and Grocery Outlet
I buy grains and spices at my middle Eastern market. Frekeh soup is just fantastic when made with actual frekeh instead of lentil
Oh and meats are generally more varied at Mexican meat markets and halal markets
Oh and meats are generally more varied at Mexican meat markets and halal markets
Oh, that reminded me. I actually REALLY like lamb. I could get ground lamb (honestly, probably mutton not lamb, lol) for a decent price at the Ukrainian grocery store.
It’s so damn hard to find lamb/mutton that isn’t super-expensive in ordinary stores, it’s just not considered a meat Americans eat outside of special occasions. But I like it.
My man, you have no idea how much I love lamb lol we gave a Mediterranean restaurant around here run by a lovely Syrian family and their food is so fucking good
How do you usually cook lamb?
Like I said, I usually got ground, so basically made lamb-burgers. Other than that though, I’m fairly out of my depth with this meat.
(Oh–and I experimented once with a lamb crockpot roast that was seasoned with nutmeg and allspice and some other spices that are not usually used in America for meats. It was pretty darn good!)
Kehbab cook that up, have it with some fresh or warmed pita, some tzatziki sauce and some Turmeric Rice as well as some pickled veggies and you’ve got yourself a perfect meal. 👌
That turmeric rice looks interesting. The middle east and India are two largely different regions and it’s bit of a disservice to just combine their cusine together. (talking about the recipe and how it’s written), that being said, it’s very similar to halal cart style rice but a lot more basic.
This halal cart rice has more variety in seasonings.
Edit: can’t find the recipe I looked at previously. It’s basically just turmeric rice with cumin (which is actually necessary.)
Edit 2: here’s what I wanted to send.
Well like I said before, the restaurant I go to around here is Mediterranean but run by a Syrian family so it also has some deeper middle eastern influence
It’s an undertaking that definitely isn’t for everyone, but once in a while I’ve been able to find whole lambs in the frozen section at Costco.
I didn’t have a freezer at the time but now that I do I’m definitely grabbing one to butcher up if I see them again. IIRC (been a couple years) they were in the neighborhood of $3/lb, so a whole lamb would run around $120 and net you probably around 30-40lbs of meat plus bones for stock and such. Even if I’m wildly misremembering and/or prices have gone up, and it costs twice as much, at least around me, you’re probably not going to find a better deal on lamb.
You need to be reasonably confident in your knife skills to break it down of course, you need a plan on how to thaw it out, workspace to do your butchering, and a plan to pack up all the cuts and store them
I did actually buy one a few year ago, I’m on good terms with my boss at the pizza shop I used to work at, so he let me use the walk-in there to thaw it. We roasted it whole over a fire for a party so no real butchering to be done. Definitely recommend doing that if you have some outdoor fire pit cooking space and are looking for something different and eye-catching for the main event for your party (google “lamb al asador” to get an idea what our setup looked like, it’s something to behold)
Spices are way better deals at ethnic grocery stores. You can pay Mcornik $13 at my local Albertsons for a small bottle of cardamom pods, or hop over to an Indian market and pay $10 for a roughly sandwich size zip lock bag stuffed with them.
I live in an area that has several ethnic stores (iranian, lebanese, and some mixed “oriental”), with varying quality. I buy rice, saffron and nuts there.
- Rice: 5 - 10 kg bags or basmati and jasmine rice (we divide it with some neighbours, as we don’t cook with rice daily), which both tastes much better than chain store bought and is of a better quality. And as we buy in bulk, it’s cheaper, and the brands we usually buy are apparently lower in arsenic contents than the ones from the chain stores.
- Saffron: The quality of saffron I can get in the iranian stores is much, much higher than the one sold in chain stores. And it’s the same price.
- Nuts: Don’t get me started on the quality of nuts from some mediterranean focused stores that sell nuts and sweets. I only buy almond and hazelnut fro chain stores when I want to grind them to flour.
They also stock better dates (medjool), have more varieties of fresh egg plant and squash, and have the best water melons when they’re in season.
I buy almost anything that’s not a packaged good (meat, seafood, produce) from Asian grocery stores, plus a few packaged goods (mostly noodle soups). The prices are phenomenally better than what I think of as “white people grocery stores” (all the big chains). Except salmon–for whatever reason, the Asian grocery stores usually only sell farmed Atlantic salmon. I assume because it’s the cheapest.
